Prose CV

Barbara Gowdy’s critically acclaimed six novels and widely anthologized short-story collection have been published in twenty-four countries and have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the world. Her novel Falling Angels became a major motion picture, as did her story We So Seldom Look on Love (under the title, Kissed). Two other stories from the collection were adapted and released as short features. Her original screenplay, Green Door, debuted at The Toronto International Film Festival.

She has been a finalist three times for The Governor General’s Award and The Roger’s Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, twice for The Scotia Bank Giller Prize and The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and has been long-listed for The Booker Prize. In 1996 she received The Marian Engel Award, and in 2002 she was chosen as Toronto’s Best Author (second to Margaret Atwood) in NOW magazine’s poll of 300,000 writers.

She is a Trillium Book Award winner, a member of the Order of Canada and a Guggenheim Fellow. Ben Marcus of Harper’s magazine has named her as one of the few “terrific” literary realists who have “pounded on the emotional possibilities of their mode, refusing to subscribe to worn-out techniques and story-telling methods.”

Barbara Gowdy

Barbara Gowdy is the author of seven books, including Helpless, The Romantic, The White Bone, Mister Sandman, We So Seldom Look on Love and Falling Angels, all of which have met with widespread international acclaim. A three-time finalist for The Governor General’s Award, two-time finalist for The Scotia Bank Giller Prize, The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, winner of the Marian Engel Award and The Trillium Book Prize, Gowdy has been longlisted for The Man Booker Prize. She has been called “a miraculous writer” by the Chicago Tribune, and in 2005 Harper’s magazine described her as a “terrific literary realist” who has “refused to subscribe to worn-out techniques and storytelling methods.” Born in Windsor, Ontario, she lives in Toronto.